Excerpt from Chapter 2: Coved
Well before noon, they packed up their belongings and continued hiking around the cove, stopping every few minutes to appreciate their surroundings, the soaring evergreens, the smell of moss. They finally reemerged on Farm to Market an hour later. As they drove toward Lumby, they were just passing Montis Abbey when they saw Hank.
Hank the flamingo came by way of Johnnie D (Jimmy D’s youngest son), who one day received a large box from Amazon. Having ordered a few books the week before, he was surprised as any in the post office to get a box that was at least four and a half feet long and two feet wide and equally high. Opening it, he found a tall, lanky plastic pink flamingo with long legs and a black beak, which had gotten lost and wrongly stamped in Amazon’s shipping department.
Being the restless and imaginative boy that he was, Johnnie decided to keep the flamingo, and after careful consideration named him Hank, after a hound puppy he had lost several years back. Over the course of that early spring, Hank, an otherwise well-behaved flamingo, found himself the victim of numerous pranks: being named as an altar boy in the Presbyterian Church Sunday bulletin, applying for a shift manager position at Lumby’s Sporting Goods and, worst of all, being accused of making sexual advances on a stone goose statue owned by Mrs. Bowman on Grant Avenue.
Hank continued to be seen about town every now and again: at the voting booths being as politically involved as a plastic bird can, taking the eleventh-grade final English exam, on the picket line in front of the lumber mill demanding better health insurance, and in a canoe paddling solo on Woodrow Lake. After a month of wild and carefree adventures, he finally landed on the front lawn of Montis Abbey, nesting in the overgrown foliage. Had one thought that pink flamingos were indigenous to the area, he would have been a candidate for the cover of National Geographic.
Over the weeks Hank became the honorary caretaker of Montis. Undiscussed with Johnnie D, someone began dressing Hank in appropriate, and occasionally inappropriate, attire, and soon several of Lumby’s finest sewers got involved to give Hank a well-turned-out wardrobe.
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On that fateful morning when the Walkers took notice, Hank was basking in a pair of bright red shorts, a Hard Rock Café T-shirt tailored to his unique physique, a sun visor, sunglasses, and a towel loosely draped over his wings. They were so amazed at what they saw that they hit the soft shoulder going a little too fast.
When the car finally careened to a stop, they instantly broke into laughter.
“What was that?” Pam asked.
“A pink flamingo.”
“In Lumby?”
“Only in Lumby,” Mark said, still laughing.
At that moment, someone tapped on Mark’s window, which startled both of them, which got Pam laughing even harder — she now had uncontrollable giggles. “You folks all right?” a man asked loudly, still pecking at the window with his index finger. “I was driving right behind you when I saw you run off the road.”
Mark lowered his window, fighting back laughter, hitting Pam’s leg to quiet her down. “We’re fine, thanks,” he said.
“Looks like you’ll need a tow,” the man said, leaning forward to look at the car’s front end.
Mark got out to assess the damage; the tire was flat and the wheel looked very bent.
“Can you recommend someone we can call?”
“Oh, no phones up here,” the man said, not used to cell phone technology. “I’ll give John a call when I get home. If he didn’t go to church with Lilly, he should be here in about thirty minutes.”
“Thanks very much,” Mark said, shaking his hand, giving an evil eye to Pam, who was still in the car laughing.
While waiting for John & Son to drive the short distance down from Lumby and bring them a new tire, Mark and Pam Walker passed the time by strolling around the Montis property and peering in the dingy and frequently broken windows. The grounds were so overgrown, it was difficult walking through many of the fields, but they could still make out the abandoned orchard, the collapsing raised beds where the monks once tended to their summer vegetables, and the rose garden planted by some of the schoolgirls while boarding there.
The condition of the buildings appeared to range from “still standing” to “not still standing.” In back of the main building where the fire had been, two-by-fours were nailed together to support a massive tarp thrown over the charred roof opening. Over time the tarp had given way to bad weather, resulting in serious water damage to the inside. The outbuildings, though, were untouched by the fire, and had kept their condition as well as could be expected.
As the Walkers made their way around the compound, an idea that had lain dormant for years awoke and danced in the air like static electricity. Their first, hesitant words must have been so softly spoken no one would have been able to hear; the words were more of a heavy exhale with sound than anything.
“We’ve talked about it for a long time, you know,” Mark said, “talked about doing something different.”
“Yeah, but this is just too much. And we don’t even know if it’s for sale.”
“But this is what we said we wanted in our phase two, and now’s a good time for both of us to make the move.”
Pam wasn’t so sure. “It would take everything we have to just rebuild it, let alone turn it into a profitable business.”
“But we could do it.”
“Do you want to leave the East Coast? That’s where all our friends are.”
“But this place is incredible,” Mark said.
“And we don’t even know if there’s enough tourism to support an inn.”
“Then we don’t rely on tourists. We can get some local businesses to rent out space for meetings.”
Pam didn’t respond.
“And we can bring back the orchard ... start making some cobbler.”
Pam, who still wouldn’t respond, just stared at her husband in partial disbelief.
“And, during the summer, we can have a farmers market.”
When they finally worked their way around to the front of Montis Abbey, Pam stood transfixed as she looked at the old chapel. A shiver went down her back. She stared at the massive stones that had been stacked a hundred years ago to form the walls and support the roof of gray slates, now worn and cracked from time and weather. She carefully walked up onto the front porch and ran her fingers over the handblown glass of the windowpane, feeling the ripples and small air bubbles caught in time when the glass was liquid, and noticed the window’s gentle tint of color that softened the view within.
What awed Pam the most, though, was the front door: a massive piece of redwood five feet wide and eight feet tall, carved with tremendous skill and precision. Scrolled columns were engraved into both sides of the door with an intricate pattern of spirals encircling a large cross that was centered between them. Above that, the word “” was cut deep into the wood in detailed calligraphy. The hinges were of forged iron, each one of such size and weight that Pam thought they must have been hammered several centuries earlier and somehow made their way to this monastery, this door.
She turned to ask Mark a question, but saw that he had crossed the road and was making his way through what they presumed was once a vibrant and well-cultivated orchard. She watched as he stumbled over fallen limbs that were hidden under a carpet of wild vines and knee-high weeds. Mark was a fit, athletic man, but he had clearly met his match with this orchard, and Pam heard him laugh, swear, and then laugh again as he tried to make his way to the top of the hill.
Standing on the porch watching her husband, Pam allowed her heart to take hold and sweep away all logic, leaving her defenseless against the exhilaration of pure excitement. Here she could live a life that would bring her joy, a life shared with the husband she loved. She finally saw what Mark had envisioned, and she knew, in that one moment, that this was the compelling reason she needed to finally break away from her golden handcuffs. |